The Eve before Battle
by jensening
Summary: Clarke is dealing with anxiety and guilt for the coming battle with the mountain men, and also struggling with her feelings for Lexa. But Lexa knows just what to say. Clexa one-shot. This is Clarke and Lexa before they go to war with the mountain men, and after their kiss. Imagine there's a day between the kiss and Lexa calling for battle, instead of it being straight after.


_The eve before battle –_ This is Clarke and Lexa before they go to war with the mountain men, and after their kiss. Imagine there's like a day between Lexa calling for battle and the kiss, instead of, like, straight after. I've had this sitting around for a while, so I decided to publish it.

* * *

It was hard to stay relaxed, Clarke realised with some morbid doubt. It was hard to not think about the moment they would reach Mount Weather, and the moment her people met the force of their enemy. It was hard, impossible even, to imagine those that she would lose –would there be many, would they be friends, family, those she loved? Or would they be the Grounders, the indistinguishable faces Clarke had never before registered, that would soon be glued to her mind and resurface with every sharp breath?

Clarke did not want to know.

But she knew that she had to, and knew that she would know, and she knew that she would live with it. Anxious that she would deal with it well. Like Lexa.

But Clarke could see through her, as she had told the prestige Commander, and she knew that Lexa felt every death, all death, completely and irrefutably, as if it were the first time she had killed as a naïve, ambitious warrior.

Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly, though Clarke would profusely refute this) she found that the thought of losing Lexa stung more than she would like to admit. It stung as much as the thought of losing Octavia did. That scared Clarke. Stunted her; worried her; overwhelmed her. She had told Lexa she was not ready, not yet, but was that strictly true? Remembering her rough yet delicate hands, hands that could snap her neck with the most bloodthirsty precision, stroke against her skin so gently and thumb at her cheek as she leaned in ever so gently and joined their lips –

The thought shifted her in good ways, very good ways, and that made her feel sick to her stomach. Lexa was not a woman to trifle with, though Clarke had seen her insecurities in those bright, sharp eyes.

But Lexa was fierce.

The pure mass of the Grounder force proved that. Combined with the Sky People, it was enough to shake Clarke's soul into an abyssal vision of hell; it was to be a bloody battle, probably the bloodiest she would see - and Clarke had watched people be harvested for their blood, hung upside down like animals for the slaughter.

But she wanted all of the Mountain Men dead. She wanted their heads like decorative ornaments, she wanted their bodies burnt and their minds trembling to the point of no return. She wanted them to suffer as she had suffered, as Anya had suffered, as everybody who had entered that mountain and never returned had suffered.

She wanted them burnt, mutilated, broken, and only then would she feel satisfied.

Clarke wasn't sure she was ready to want such a thing.

Lexa seemed to understand this, and on this late night, the eve before battle, the bruised blue and black sky shining with what the Grounder's believed to be the souls of the ancestors, Clarke had sought her comfort – an odd want beyond any standard.

When she had entered, Lexa had been sat on her throne but stood at the sight of Clarke. They had lingered for a moment, just looking at each other, never moving, never talking…just looking. Clarke did not understand their relationship. Clarke did not understand how when Lexa finally spoke, it was like a soothing punch to the gut.

"Clarke, is everything all right?"

She kept thinking of those closest to her – her mother, Bellamy, Raven, Octavia, Monty, Jasper, Kane, and now Lincoln – and how every time she thought of them dying, she ached inside. And now, every time she thought of those closest to her, and their deaths, and how she would take it, react, she thought of Lexa. And that was a different kind of ache altogether.

"I think so." Clarke had said. "Everything's fine. The army's prepared, moral is high, the acid fog is disabled –"

But a storm was churning in her stomach.

"I just –"

Lexa's eyes flashed with understanding, and she moved forward with powerful, elegant movements. "You are nervous." She stated. If there was one thing Clarke liked about the Grounders, it was that they were so sure in everything they did. They thought something, saw something, and they stated it. They meant what they said. Everything was black and white with them. Their customs were far easier to follow, though not as easy to follow through. Finn's death was an example of that; the Grounders could be brutal.

They needed that brutality.

"I am." Clarke replied, a shaky breath escaping her lips. She took an unsure step forward. Lexa and her were a lot closer than they had been but a moment ago, and Clarke felt her pulse in her ears. "I don't know why."

Lies.

"You're worried for your friends. It's unsurprising. I was the same when I first took command. I felt like every death was my own, their blood soaked my hands."

"And you're not like that anymore?"

Lexa shook her head. "Love is weakness." She said. "Eliminate the feelings and the guilt washes off."

Clarke felt Lexa was a broken record; she repeated this phrase so much it was almost like she had drilled it into herself, forced herself to believe it, and for that reason, she did not think that Lexa truly believed it. Back at Tondc, she would not let Clarke die and then, just yesterday, she had admitted her feelings. Lexa was contradicting herself.

"Weakness?" Clarke took a step forward; another step from sanity and closer to the dark whims she was not sure she was ready for. "Love and hope are what allow us to persevere. Love fuels all other emotions. It can propel us just as well as it can destroy us; it doesn't have to be weakness, Lexa. There is bad and good in everything."

"That is what you believe?"

Clarke did not notice the whisper that took her voice, nor the tingling warmth of Lexa being so close to her. "I have to." she mumbled. "Just as you have to believe love is weakness."

"Because it is true, Clarke. Love brings death and despair. It makes a weak leader."

Clarke saw the twinge of something darker in Lexa's brown eyes. It made her chest hurt.

"No." she whispered, her voice firmer than before. Her hand had reached out and grabbed Lexa's wrist, whose eyes darted to the contact. "Because you _need_ to, Lexa. Love also brings happiness and life, and it's what keeps people going in moments of strife and hardship. That is why your people look to you, Lexa, because they love you."

Another step forward.

"And why do you look to me?"

The sentence floated in the air, stroking at Clarke's skin and compelling her forward, swaying her body.

It was a dare. Clarke knew this. Lexa wanted her to fall into the trap, to retreat and prove Lexa right, that love is weakness, but as nervous and unwilling as she was, she could not fall prey. She would not. Clarke was right, and in denying what she knew she felt, what Lexa's lips had taught her, she would be a hypocrite.

So, she spoke only truth.

"Because I care about you."

Lexa's eyes fluttered at the confession. There was the smallest space between them, the tension pulling them into each other but keeping them apart. Clarke's mouth felt dry staring at the girl in front of her, the one with glazed eyes and sharp, smooth features, and soft pink lips that Clarke secretly yearned for. She had not fallen prey to Lexa's trap, she had thought, but maybe Clarke had done the exact opposite.

Lexa's hand reached out and cupped Clarke's chin, her thumb gently stroking at her face and melting Clarke's restraint. "I care about you." Lexa had whispered back.

And then they had kissed. It was chaste and beautiful, and soft and slow, and deep and longing, and it was a promise of something more. The way Lexa kissed her reminded her of the first time Clarke had seen the setting sun on Earth: the breathlessness of the moment, and how the oranges, pinks, yellows and reds had blended together like oil paints swept across a canvas. She felt so warm, and so safe, and so content. She felt one of her arms reach out and wrap around Lexa's waist; it supported her, almost, because her knees felt weak with uncertainty, and her heart felt weak with joy.

When they had separated, Clarke had offered the smallest of smiles, and Lexa had stared at her as if she would disappear.

"I'm still not ready." Clarke had whispered, and she watched as that one sentence seemed to crush Lexa's strength, and how her eyes seemed to drain of feeling. "But I know I also think I'm not ready to be a leader, and for the battle tomorrow, and the death I'll have to deal with, and for the people I'll kill. But I know I have to do them all, and although I'm not ready for this, Lexa," she grabbed Lexa's hand and entwined their fingers. Lexa seemed to visibly relax. Her next words were a deeper, wispy tone. "I know that I want to do this."

Lexa did not move, and her face did not betray her emotions. But Clarke had seen her depths, and Clarke could see the vulnerability that clouded her eyes.

And so she kissed her again, letting their vulnerabilities slip away with the taste of each other.


End file.
